At the fourth round of the MXGP World Championship, which took place in Italy, “Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team” athlete Pauls Jonass earned fourth place in the first moto but fell back and finished ninth during the second one, gaining fifth position in the round overall. This was by far his worst performance but despite the difficulties Pauls is still at the top of the points standings in the MX2 class.

“The weekend started off well, I was the fastest during free practice. Sadly, during qualification race I had a pretty bad start and after that I crashed as well so I had to fight my way through from the very back of the pack; I finished in the fifteenth position. Unfortunately I could not pass that many riders because the track was quite narrow so there was not much space for anything really,” says Pauls, looking back at his Saturday performance.

“On Sunday I also couldn’t manage to get good starts. I finished the first race in the fourth position which was not too bad but then, during the second moto, (Henry) Jacobi and I collided and both fell which led up to finishing ninth. It is a pity that this was an unlucky round; however, have to point out both Jorge Prado and Thomas Covington who very very fast this weekend.”

Despite this being Pauls’ worst performance of the season, he is still at the top of the championship points standings, towering his closest rival Prado by 28 points.

“I managed to hold on to the red plate which is the most important thing but, of course, I always want to win and extend the lead as much as possible. Sometimes you have to accept defeat and learn from it. Despite the fact that I’m always working very hard during my training sessions, this will give me an extra boost of motivation to push even harder to show everyone during the next GP that what happened in Italy was just an unlucky coincidence,” he finishes.

As on now, Pauls is back in Belgium where he’ll be practicing until it’s time to leave for the fifth GP of the season, taking place in Agueda, Portugal.